Mistakes to avoid making when starting your French company
Creating a company can be difficult. It’s especially tricky when you’re trying to create a business in another country, with a judicial system you’re not quite used to. As such, it’s easy to make certain mistakes that could cost you dearly in the long run!
This is why we’ve made a list of the 5 mistakes you should avoid when creating a company in France!
-
Not properly hiring someone with an employment contract
If you ever hire an employee, it is essential that they only work for you if you have an employment contract.
The reason being, that even if they don’t, judges will still consider that there is a “de facto contract” if they work for you. This is very dangerous for you: in these cases, the contract will automatically considered to be a full-time permanent contract.
As such, if you pay them any differently than what you would a full-time worker, you could have to pay a fine. The same goes for not paying enough in social contributions, not fulfilling a certain obligation, etc.
-
Not having a license to exercise your activity
For certain activities, it is mandatory to have a license allowing you to exercise them. This is the case for doctors, lawyers, bailiffs…
It’s thus a good idea to make sure that you can operate this activity before starting to create a company.
-
Writing contracts without the help of a professional
This doesn’t just go for contracts with third-parties. This also applies when writing by-laws, or when creating an associate’s pact. Legal errors or ambiguous wording can be very dangerous, and they can happen easily, especially if you don’t have perfect knowledge of the French legal system.
-
Ignoring the “intellectual property” rights
When creating your company, you need to make sure that you’re not infringing on any trademark or copyright!
Thankfully though, trademarks are separated by activity. As such, if someone has a trademarked the name of his computer company, using the same name for a restaurant will be allowed (unless the name of the firm is universally known).
